DA Revelations Episode 21: Scared
by AngelExposed
Summary: Rogue is shaken at the revelation of Jessie's newfound ability. Remy feels Rogue may be slipping away from him now that he's back, and Jessie makes a startling discovery about Remy.
1. Chapter 1: Worse and Worse

DA Revelations

Episode 21 - Scared

Chapter One - Worse and Worse

Rogue was shaking; her heart was pounding and her chest rising and falling with uneven frightened breath as she stared at the seven year old girl who had just taken a forceful hold of her face without even blinking. And the child stood there, so calm, so normal...so...unharmed.

"Jessie..." Remy whispered in awe.

Confused, Rogue moved backwards, and used the wall to brace herself as she pulled herself up, she was trembling.

"Jessie...how did you do that?" the Professor asked, wheeling over quickly, his voice was terse, his eyes were piercingly cold.

With big grey-blue eyes, Jessie looked at all three adults, and she shrugged as if this were no big deal. "I dunno..." she answered, her voice was truthful.

Remy took a hold of Jessie's hands and examined them, they were unharmed and apart from the cast on her right arm, nothing seemed any different from months before. "How..." he shook his head in confusion. "I don't understand..."

Jessie tilted her head to look at him. "I dunno..." she said again with a shrug.

Rogue said nothing, she stood there in the corner trying to catch her breath, her lips trembling; she'd been so frightened. She'd thought for one moment the little girl would be dead...or in a coma for the rest of her life. But she was standing there quite the thing...so perfect, so untouched by her powers. It just couldn't be _possible_.

"How long have you known you could do that?" Professor Xavier asked.

Jessie shrugged, "I dunno," she said a third time, "Rogue was sleeping beside me and I touched her and I didn't get hurt and I did it again..."

Rogue's face paled to hear this, with shaking fingers reached out to grab Remy's sleeve.

"Don't you know by doing that you _could_ have been seriously hurt?"

"I didn't feel like I would be..." Jessie answered softly, "I just _knew_ I wouldn't be...like I know things sometimes that I probably wasn't supposed to know..."

"You still should _not_ be taking that risk..." the Professor warned.

"But it _never_ doesn't work..." Jessie explained. "And if I _had_ told her...she wouldn't have believed me anyway...I had to show her...that's why I got hurt..." she gestured to her arm.

Remy turned to look at Rogue, "you okay?" he asked.

"I...no..." Rogue shook her head, "I thought for one minute..."

"I told you..." Jessie stepped up to her, "you can't _hurt_ me...you can't hurt me like that...so you don't need to be scared about it anymore..."

"I could _still _hurt you with my strength," Rogue reminded with a frown.

"But you _wouldn't!" _Jessie said quickly, her mouth tight.

"But I _did_," Rogue said sharply.

"But it was _my _fault," Jessie said in an immature and stubborn tone. "And I don't _want_ you to feel bad any more...it's not fair...you shouldn't be feeling bad about something you didn't do...and I did..."

Rogue rubbed her head, "I think I need some air..." she said quickly before darting out of the room.

Remy looked between the Professor and Jessie and sighed, "I...guess I better go chase her, huh?"

"Probably," Jessie reasoned, she chewed the inside of her cheek.

Remy turned and left the room, he heard Rogue's footsteps heading down the hall and he rushed after her; he caught her arm as she'd almost reached the back door. "Chere...wait."

"I feel sick," Rogue remarked. "I feel like I'm gonna throw up..."

"It's just stress. Breathe it out..."

Rogue opened the door and stepped outside with Remy in tow. "This is so...so fucked up," she admitted, she took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

"It is?" he asked, in earnest he didn't see anything messed up with what had happened, perhaps he just wasn't looking at it from her point of view.

She shook her head, "this whole thing. God I've been so...so anxious to see you...and then Jessie got hurt and I couldn't _bear_ to see you...and then this..." she sat down upon the steps and pulled her knees to her chest. "Not exactly the warm welcome you should have been enjoying."

He sat down beside her and slid his arm around her, "not exactly. But hey...it's like I never left."

"This whole thing sure overshadows your coming home," she ran her hand through her hair frustratedly.

"Hey, it's a _lil'_ bit messed up but...wow, what a revelation..." he smirked.

"You think this is all funny, don't you?" she asked.

"No...I think it's kinda cool though..." he confessed. "My daughter...can _touch_ you. I mean how is _that_ for a sure fire _meant to be_ sign right there?"

"That's not even funny," Rogue looked away from him stubbornly.

"Sorry...but I find it so...I don't know...reassuring."

"Reassuring? Are you _mad?_"

"There you are afraid you'll hurt her and it turns out your powers have no effect on her..."

"What if she _had_ been hurt? Again..."

"I'd have been devastated...but I couldn't have blamed you when I was there to _see _what happened..."

She sighed.

"It's good to be home..." he admitted after a moment. "Everything looks so different...so lush...so...bright..." he gestured.

"It's cloudy out and it's been raining..." she raised an eyebrow.

"Compared to how bleak things seem on Muir Island, this is like Eden..." he joked.

"I don't see how you can sit there so calm and be laughing about this when...everything is so fucked up."

"Nothing is fucked up."

"Your daughter has just revealed that she can _touch_ me. That's fucked up."

"It's fucked up that it's not me who can touch you like that..." he admitted, "at least...not to the extent she can. But god...it gives me such _hope._"

"This is messed up and you're trying to make this a reason that we _are _meant to be together..."

"It might be fate, you never know..." Remy shrugged, "after the things that have happened and things I've seen in the past few months, it's hard to not believe in fate."

"You're acting weird..." Rogue turned to stare at him strangely. "I have to wonder if it's really _you_ or another clone."

"I'm not a clone..." he shook his head, "I've just...had some time away to get my head together..." he explained, "I feel...kind of like a new man."

"How new?" Rogue asked, "you're not going to start going on about finding Jesus or that you're intending to have a sex change or something, are you?"

He put his hand on her knee, "no. I'm still me...just...the better me."

"Remy..." she began; her expression said it all...she had doubt that he was completely better.

"Look..." he interrupted softly, he unbuttoned the first three buttons of the top of the boilersuit he'd borrowed from the plane, he revealed his chest, neither side showing any scarring anymore.

Her face became unreadable as her eyes roved across the flesh, "no marks..."

"No marks, no pain, no fractured bones..." he gave a weird laugh, "no tattoo either."

"No tattoo?" she asked.

"Yeah, my body rejected the ink when I started to heal up..."

"Are you going to have it redone?" she asked curiously.

"Maybe..." he shrugged. "It's not really important."

"But if you don't have any scars anymore, how will I be able to tell you from the clones?"

He considered this, "you know me so well I think you'd be able to catch any of them out...especially over stuff that's happened since I moved back into the mansion."

She nodded, and accepted this for now.

A moment of silence fell between them, Rogue stared down at the ground, her eyes distant, her mouth taut.

"You aren't glad to see me, are you?" he asked.

"I'm just...annoyed I didn't get to pull myself together before you got back so I could properly _be _happy to see you. I _am_ glad to see you...I just...so much has happened that nothing has really sunk in yet...y'know?"

"Yeah..." he stood up.

"God I need a shower," Rogue sighed as she stood too, "I haven't showered in a couple of days – the electricity and the water aren't running in that house of yours, you know."

"The power is out...the shower won't work here either," Remy replied.

"Great..." Rogue muttered. "This day keeps getting worse and worse."


	2. Chapter 2: Remy's Daughter

Chapter Two – Remy's Daughter

Jessie put her completed homework ontop of the toy box in her bedroom; she was glad it was over for now, but she'd been informed there might be more to come, at least until she returned to school the following Monday. Her arm throbbed as she picked up a sweater and awkwardly pulled it on, the sleeve being slightly too tight over her cast.

She wondered how much trouble she really was in regarding the revelation of her being able to touch Rogue's skin without being harmed. She realised that the timing was probably quite tactless, perhaps she should have waited until Rogue felt better about what had happened before she tried to show her what she could do.

After getting the sweater on properly – and the right way around – she left the bedroom and slowly sauntered down the hall. She heard voices coming from the upstairs hallway and decided to take a left and go up to see who was talking.

"I think I see one of the problems here..." she heard the German accent and she knew right away that was Mr. Wagner.

Jessie climbed the stairs and glanced through the railing of the banister to see Mr. Wagner and Mr. LeBeau standing by a wall; they'd knocked a hole in it, and plaster had powdered the wooden floor beneath. A bunch of different coloured wires had been tugged out of the wall, and Mr. Wagner was examining them while Mr. LeBeau was holding a large flashlight directly at the wall so they could see.

"You know what you're doing with all this?" asked Mr. LeBeau, he was holding a flashlight at the mess of wires.

"I know more about wiring than you do," Mr. Wagner replied quickly, "Hold the light steady...your hand is shaking."

"Yeah, I can't help that," said Mr. LeBeau.

"Withdrawls?" asked Mr. Wagner casually.

"I don't know...I didn't think I'd _have_ any."

"The regenerative therapy only fixed your body, it didn't fix your mind, and if your brain is craving _something..._the body is going to react how it normally would."

"I was hoping I wouldn't have that problem," Mr. LeBeau tried to hold the light steady.

"Question is...is it cigarettes you need or..."

"Of course it's cigarettes..." Mr. LeBeau replied all too quickly, "I haven't had a drink in...god, since I left here..."

"That's good..." Mr. Wagner nodded, "But are you gonna continue getting counselling for that now you're back?"

"What choice do I have?"

Mr. Wagner cut and stripped a wire, "this part of the wire melted..." he mumbled.

"Drinking was fine when I didn't have much to lose...to be honest...I didn't even think I really _had_ much of a problem."

"We all noticed it, no one wanted to say anything, it wasn't out of _control," _Mr. Wagner admitted, "I've seen alcoholics and you were nowhere near as ill or as addicted. But it could have turned that way."

Mr. LeBeau sighed and leaned against the wall, "yeah."

"Was it hard...battling addiction?" Mr. Wagner asked, he cut the wires and twisted them together with his gloved hands.

"I've been through worse...much, much worse."

Mr. Wagner turned and looked at Mr. LeBeau strangely; Jessie felt a strange unsaid thing go between them that felt very dark and oddly unsettling. She moved back into the shadows just a little bit.

"So...how do you deal with it all now?" Mr. Wagner asked, he moved the wires back into the wall.

"One day at a time. I was told to think about what I thought I needed...and then to think about what I could _lose, _and to put each of them on different sides of a metaphorical scale..." he held the flashlight up a little more. "You find that the two of them don't _balance_, y'see."

"What you could lose is far heavier than what you think you need..." Mr. Wagner agreed.

"I can't _lose_ what I have now...I want to be here...I want to make it to my wedding day and I definitely want to make it to my _daughter's._"

Jessie frowned; what was he talking about? He didn't _have_ a daughter anymore...his daughter had died in childbirth.

Unless...

_Unless he has another kid somewhere else, _she thought dully_._

"Way things are these days..." Mr. Wagner began, "who knows if she ever _will_ get married. She might be like Kitty...independent...single mother, taking control of her own life."

Mr. LeBeau grunted, "I don't want to imagine my daughter as a single mother struggling to bring a kid up without a dad. Considering..." he trailed off.

Mr. Wagner stopped what he was doing and looked up at Mr. LeBeau, Jessie felt a chill in the air.

"I just...I went through it myself, y'know...and...now she has to..."

"You had a father of some sort..."

"An opportunist drunk who wasn't there for most of my life..." Mr. LeBeau said, then he chuckled with a sense of irony, "guess we do turn out like our fathers, even the one we're not related to by blood."

Jessie felt she'd heard enough and her stomach knotted as the guilt swept over her that she'd heard far more than she probably should have. She slowly crept back down the stairs, wondering many things that would trouble her for the rest of the day.


	3. Chapter 3: Tired

Chapter Three - Tired

The lights were only partially working in the mansion by dinner time, but the power to most outlets was still out. A new generator that Scott Summers had managed to hastily procure had at least managed to give light to most of the bathrooms and most of the upstairs rooms, however, the sub-basements were still without power for the most part, except from cerebro which ran on it's own powersource that somehow hadn't been knocked out by Jessie's extreme nightmare reaction.

For dinner, Pizzas were ordered in once the batteries were replaced in most of the cellphones. While the students ate in the kitchen, the X-Men, plus Jessie, ate in the recreation room with napkins on their laps.

Jessie sat folded legged on the floor, a large piece of four cheese pizza in her tiny hands; the fireplace was lit and candles had been lit around the room giving everything a warm cosy glow and Remy couldn't help but notice the troubled expression on her face. She hadn't said much at all, just sat quiet, listening to the X-Men talking amongst themselves as if she understood what they were all talking about, even complicated talk of wiring and replacement outlets, and generators.

Rogue sat on the arm of the couch directly to Remy's left, she ate her pizza quietly, not really listening to anything in particular.

Remy glanced at Rogue, her expression too, seemed troubled; he had to wonder why it was all of the women in his life were always doomed to be troubled. "Penny for your thoughts..." he said after a moment.

"Just tired," Rogue responded before taking a small bite of her pizza.

"Yeah, you look it," Remy agreed; he hadn't seen Rogue look this bad in years. She seemed as if she hadn't slept for weeks, she was so drawn and pale, her hair lacklustre, her eyes slightly glazed.

"I've lost out on so much sleep lately" she admitted after chewing.

He placed his hand upon her thigh, he was unsure why he'd done so, perhaps just the lack of closeness over the past month and a half had been enough to drive him to needing to always touch her.

Her muscles tightened and she brushed his fingers away gently, "not in front of Jessie," she said quietly, she tossed the pizza crust into the empty box on the coffee table and she stood up. "I'm gonna...have an early night..." she explained, excusing herself. Remy watched her feeling slightly dejected, but he tried to hide it; he felt Jessie's eyes on them both and wondered what the small girl was thinking.

_She looks so...upset...what's going on with her...she was so _happy_ to see me...now...it's like something is different...everything feels so different..._

Jessie looked away when he turned to look at her and meet her eyes; she stared down at her pizza instead then took a tiny bite and chewed, she then pretended to be listening to what Kitty was saying about how Caleb smiled when she showed him the stuffed rabbit that Kurt had bought him.

Remy took one large bite of his slice of spicy beef pizza, then tossed the remainder into the box with the crust leftovers. He got up, without excusing himself he left the room to go catch up with Rogue. She was just approaching the staircase in the foyer when he caught her. "Chere?" he asked.

She stopped there; she did not turn to him though. "Yeah?" she asked softly.

"Is everything..." he began, then caught himself. "What's wrong?" he finally asked. Instinctively he knew something was wrong, he just wasn't sure what it could be...as far as he saw everything was fine...and yet Rogue still seemed unhappy.

"Nothing is wrong," she replied softly, "I'm just tired..." she still didn't turn to him, she just remained still.

"I know you enough to know when something is botherin' you, and something is. What's goin' on?" he moved up behind her and turned her to him, her eyes wouldn't meet his when he did so.

Rogue sighed softly, "I don't know...everything is weird...different...changing."

He stared at her, "nothing is that different...nothing has _changed_ all that much."

"You've changed..." Rogue looked away. "Somethin' feels...off."

Remy moved away from her and sat upon the bottom of the stairs, "I haven't changed. I'm still the same guy...I've just been battlin' with some stuff..." he looked to the floor.

"Remy...I'm getting...weird vibes..." Rogue hugged herself, "from you...something isn't _right._"

He raised his eyes to her. "What you talkin' about?" he frowned. "Nothing is _different_ about me I'm still the same old Remy LeBeau...just with less scars and a slightly clearer head."

"It doesn't _feel_ like you...it feels like...you're a stranger."

"Because I've been away for so long," he shrugged, "and without any contact. It feels like we've been...broken up or something," he let his forearms rest on his knees.

Rogue came to sit beside him, "maybe it's me," she sighed.

He shrugged, "might be. After what happened when Jessie tried to touch you, I can see why you'd have your doubts..."

She pulled her knees up to her chest. She didn't speak; just stared into space and contemplated his words.

"Or maybe..." he began, his voice quivered just a little. "We've been apart so long that you've finally realised y' don't really need me..." he uttered quietly.

Her head snapped around to look at him, "of course I need you," she blurted. "It's been driving me crazy that we were apart so long..."

Remy shifted to turn around and look at her, "lets go away somewhere...a vacation..." he offered. "Maybe head up to Disney World with Jessie..."

"I can't...not right now...Kitty is on maternity leave...Bobby is still gone..." she shook her head, "we're understaffed as it is...I can't just...take up and go somewhere on a whim...my running away was bad enough and caused a lot of problems."

Remy made a face, "so much for that idea."

"Take Jessie and you two go by yourselves," Rogue suggested softly.

"I can't..." he said, he thought about this. There was no way the Professor was going to allow him to have sole custody of Jessie even for a week or two after his bringing drugs into the mansion. "My...unorthodox behaviour and unstable mood is a big risk factor...I need a person there to act as a buffer should something happen..." he explained. "Listen, forget it, we'll figure something out later when the summer comes along and the majority of students are away on vacation."

Rogue gave a soft nod, "alright."

Remy stood up, "suddenly, I'm feelin' a little tired myself," he brushed his hair from his forehead; he felt the building pressure of a headache.

As he left to go upstairs, he felt Rogue's eyes upon him; all he could wonder was what she was thinking about him right then and couldn't help but sense worse things to come.


	4. Chapter 4: I Saw You

Chapter Four – I Saw You

When he awoke from his slumber it was three am and at first he had wondered what had awakened him until the silence in the mansion broke through and he heard the screaming coming from the vicinity of Jessie's room.

_Another nightmare_, he figured as he slipped out of the bed and reached around in the darkness for a pair of pants. His exhaustion had been so extreme that he'd merely stripped and climbed under the covers, too tired to look for something to wear to bed. He stepped into a pair of jogging pants he found in a drawer after fumbling in the darkness; the screams were bursting through the air and he heard the doors down the hall getting thrown open as the other X-Men were disturbed out of their own slumbers. He was still trying to pull the pants up as he left the room and crossed the hall, almost tripping over the feet on the way.

He ran down the hall, banging into Jean Grey on the way out; she too had been heading for Jessie's room.

"She's screaming worse than usual!" Remy said in a jog as he moved ahead of Jean.

"Remy, careful!" Jean cried loudly over the din of the screams. "She's more powerful than you realise!"

He reached for the doorknob and as he touched it he was thrown back into the opposite wall as a jolt went up his arm; he gave a cry out and grabbed a hold of his hand, pain travelled up and down his veins and as he looked at his palm he saw tiny jolts of electricity dancing along the spidery veins of the heel in his hand.

"What the..." he groaned as she pain throbbed up his arm, he tried to wave the pain away, now was not the time to be distracted by being electrocuted by a doorknob.

Jean forced the door open telekinetically; it burst open with tremendous force, revealing Jessie inside of the small room hovering above her bed, her arms outstretched, her eyes open wide and glowing bright blue like small moons upon her pale innocent face.

"Mon dieu!" Remy cried out as pulled himself to his feet and moved over to gaze inside.

Her screams seemed to reverberate throughout the whole mansion, the electricity from her fingertips jumped along the walls.

"What's happening to her?" Remy yelled over the noise of crackling and screaming that felt as if it would near deafen him. The horror he felt was unlike anything he had ever felt before...he was terrified to see her there like that...terrified that he was so helpless he could not pull her back.

Rogue appeared behind him, "what's happening to her!" she cried out as if echoing Remy's words.

"This has happened before..." Jean said, she tried to run into the room; she slammed against an invisible wall that seemed to be made of an electrical field; sparks darted across the door and Jean as thrown backout of the room and slammed into the wall where Remy had been thrown previously. "I can't get in."

"JESSIE!" Remy cried, "WAKE UP!"

Jean pulled herself up awkwardly, limping a little, "my telekinetic powers are useless now...they didn't even shield me!"

Rogue frowned, "maybe I can-" she leapt forward towards the door and fell to the floor halfway through the doorway with a soft thud. "Ow..."

Remy glanced at her questioningly. What had happened? Why had she fallen so clumsily like that?

"I can't fly..." Rogue grunted as she pulled herself up.

Jessie howled and the lamp on her bedside exploded into shards that rained like powder upon her carpet; then she fell to the bed, bounced off and landed upon the floor at the bottom of the bed with gentle thump. She cried out in a sob.

Remy rushed forward as the electrical field that had stopped him from entering the room had died down; he stepped over Rogue who was on the floor to get to his daughter. "Jessie..."

She glanced up with large teary eyes that glimmered in the light coming from the hallway. He knelt down to take her into his arms and she rushed to them in an almost desperate way, her little hands gripped hard at the flesh on his arms and she wailed so loudly that he felt his heart breaking a little with each sob.

"It's okay now..." he soothed, he smoothed down her hair tenderly, "it's okay..."

"I saw..." she gasped for air, "I saw...saw you..." she gulped back her tears, "you were there..."

He looked awkwardly down at her and tried to move her back from him, but she gripped on so hard, her tiny fingernails dug into the backs of his biceps and was slightly painful. "Jessie...what are you..."

One word escaped her lips, her body shook with terror as she said it. "Essex."


	5. Chapter 5: If Anything Happens

Chapter Five – If Anything Happens

Remy paced across Professor Xavier's office anxiously, it was three thirty in the morning and both were tired, but the situation of Jessie's violent nightmares had to be addressed, Remy felt. It had to be addressed and it had to be now. "It can't be possible...can it?"

Professor Xavier brushed the sleep from his left eye, he said nothing; it appeared he was still trying to wake up.

"When I was told Sinister had used her DNA in the clones...it was one thing...but I never thought for one _minute_ he would have...would have taken her to Genosha..."

"There's no evidence that she _was _on Genosha..." the Professor admitted. "She saw you...yes, but she dreamt this...and as a highly empathic child it could be possible that she is piecing this together from things picked up from you..." the Professor suggested.

"No..." Remy shook his head. "I don't believe that. Her...account of what she saw is too...vivid...too real. And what she saw...how she saw me...how she saw _him_...she described watching _him_ inject her with blue glowing liquid with a hypodermic needle..."

"And this never happened to you?" asked the Professor.

Remy shook his head and paced over to the fireplace, he placed his hand against the mantel and gazed down at the embers that had near burned out. "Not with a hypodermic..." he frowned. "He had this...thing...went on my neck...right here..." he raised the back of his hair to reveal the nape of his neck, "he'd attach these tiny little vials of stuff to it...so...she couldn't have picked that up from me..."

The Professor let himself dwell on this for a moment before speaking. "The revelation of her being on Genosha should not come as a surprise...especially after learning her DNA was embedded into those clones. It should have occurred to us all that this may have happened there..."

"Professor...if she was on Genosha...and Sinister was taking DNA from her and keeping her subdued...what _else _has he been doing to her?" Remy asked in a weak voice.

The Professor fell silent; he didn't have an answer.

Remy moved to the couch and sat down slowly. "I know the sadistic things he likes to do...I've been in that position. If he...god..." Remy put his hands to his face, "I couldn't stand the thought of him...doing those things to her..."

Professor Xavier watched him. "The DNA extraction process was painful?"

"Parts of it. Some of it I don't ever want to think about..." Remy shook his head, "needles in the brain, needles and tubes, electrodes, clips...all in places you never wanna think about havin' them..." he frowned. "The pain...perhaps more excruciating than the pain I was in during the moments I thought I would die back on Muir Island..."

"No anaesthetic?" the Professor queried.

"Sinister likes to inflict pain...I just hope he has the compassion not to ever inflict it on a little girl..." Remy shivered. "I need to go check on my daughter...Rogue is with her right now."

Rogue gazed down at Jessie who was sleeping peacefully in Remy's room on the right side of the bed, her tawny hair splayed across the pillow, her long fair eyelashes seemed to caress her pale cheeks. She had not been sleeping long, and this was why Rogue had chosen to not leave the room.

_If I left the room and she woke up...she'd be scared again,_ thought Rogue as she stared at the little girl. She still found it hard to believe what Jessie had explained earlier. It had come as such a shock...that Jessie had been there on Genosha...that she'd seen Remy there shackled to a platform.

_It's no wonder the little girl is so messed up,_ thought Rogue dully. _She's been through so much and she's just a baby..._

The bedroom door opened quietly, and Remy crept in slowly. Rogue took a good look at him examining how tired he really did seem. Although his face was flawless now other than the three day stubble he'd neglected to shave off, exhaustion marred it completely, and made him look suddenly so much older.

"How is she?" he whispered.

"Sleeping...finally," Rogue answered.

Remy moved to the right side of the bed and knelt upon the floor to examine Jessie's face as she slumbered facing the window. He gently brushed her hair away from her cheek and sighed. "Everything that's happened to her is because of me..."

"You don't know that," Rogue turned on her side to face him, she let her shoulder rest against the pillows. "You can't be responsible for her being taken by Sinister...you don't even know _why_ she exists..."

He stood slowly, "I'm scared, Rogue..." he shook his head sadly at himself. "I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life as I was when I saw her floating above that bed, electricity all around her..." he swallowed a throat full of emotion, "I don't think I've ever been as scared as I am _now..._"

Rogue watched him as he came to sit beside her at the left side of the bed, she moved her legs so he could sit down.

"Whatever he did to her...it's what's affecting her right now...her mind...her powers..." he rubbed his head tiredly. "I don't know what to do...don't know how to protect her..."

Rogue didn't have an answer, she looked away, and tried to find an answer within herself but came up without.

"The things she musta seen...the things that she must have felt...god...it makes me want to..." he clenched his fists.

"Calm down," Rogue murmured softly, she moved behind him to put her arms carefully around his shoulders.

"How can I? Doesn't it make you...mad?"

Rogue sighed and glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping child; she didn't even have to contemplate the answer. "Yes...it does...but...I can't _do_ anything..."

"Yes...you can..." he broke her arms free and turned around to face her. "Chere...if _anything_ happens to me..."

"But _nothin_' is gonna happen to you," Rogue interjected.

"It could!" he reminded, "I almost died during my treatment...if it backfires down the line, I might not make it..."

"Remy, stop talkin' like that," Rogue ordered, feeling very uncomfortable with the subject.

"No, chere! Listen! Someone has to _be_ here for Jessie...you gotta promise me that you'll look out for her...and if you ever get the opportunity...take Sinister down..."

She gave a slow and careful nod, "okay."

"Promise me!" he demanded of her desperately, the fear was there in his eyes and it frightened even her.

"I promise..." she agreed as he took her hands. "I promise."

He pulled her close and hugged her tightly, she felt him slightly shaking, and she was unsure if it was the anger at the thought of what Sinister had done, or if it was the fear of what might be to come.


	6. Chapter 6: Utterly Alone

Chapter Six – Utterly Alone

The Doctor was tall, and sinister looking with his jaundiced skin, yellowing watery dark blue eyes and his thin dry lips. For a doctor, he looked...oddly unhealthy, Jessie thought. She didn't like the feel of his clammy yet unusually cold hand as he led her down the hallway she'd just came from – the image of the man shackled to the wall stood out in her mind still...and his words...what did he mean? What did Sauvez-vous mean? His grip was firm, but not unkind.

"I hadn't really expected you to be able to escape my shackles. Obviously, I must make a few adjustments..." said the Doctor; the way he said this led her to believe he was...impressed. "Like father, like daughter," he tutted afterwards.

She wasn't sure what he meant by this...she couldn't imagine this man with the unsettling appearance who would kidnap children and inject them with glowing blue substances would have ever been friends or an acquaintance with her father...not that she could even remember her father at all now. He was a distant memory, just as a real 'home' had been. Why was it so hard to remember her real parents. "Did you know my daddy?" she finally asked nervously.

The strange Doctor gave an odd rather unusual sounding chuckle, "you could say I do," he admitted. She wasn't old enough or wise enough to catch the way he worded it, and so she let it be, she didn't press for more details...she wasn't sure she really wanted more.

Jessie swallowed nervously as she was led into a different room from where she'd been kept before. This room looked to be like a very bleak empty bedroom – there was a single metal platform hanging from the wall via two strong chains – it had been made to look like a bed with a thin uncomfortable looking mattress upon it, there were some folded up blankets upon it – they looked itchy and uncomfortable too. In the corner was a toilet and a sink, a single roll of toilet paper sat upon the barred windowsill.

"For now I'll keep you in here...this room is inescapable."

Jessie felt a horrible sinking in her stomach; would she live out her life here in this jail cell? "Who was the man in the other room?" she asked softly, feeling she had nothing left to lose. "The one with the long hair...and the scary eye..."

The Doctor led her to the 'bed' and lifted her up so that she sat upon it, the mattress was hard and lumpy and felt as if a thousand others may have sat upon it before her. "He wasn't your concern..."

She looked away from the Doctor, she was afraid to look at his face...it made her feel like crying when she did. "Is he...like me?" she asked in a tiny voice.  
"Very much so," said the Doctor, he smirked, and she saw it out of the corner of her eyes. "Very, very much so. You share a great deal of similar attributes...it's very...fascinating. You're so...alike..." he said, and he seemed to not see her anymore, but rather seemed to slide into a world of his own where he saw other things...this made her feel very uneasy.

"How come?"

Breaking out of his chain of thought, the Doctor sighed, "genetics, my darling girl, genetics. .." he placed a hand beneath her chin and raised her head so that she would look at him, his eyes meeting with hers.

"Dr," came a voice from the open doorway, Jessie's eyes quickly glanced towards there to see a figure silhouetted in black, his accent thick, barely understandable when he spoke. "The president is on the phone."

"Take a message," uttered the Doctor rudely.

"He wants to pull out of this operation."

"It can't be pulled out of...tell him if he does...we'll release information to the public about what we're doing here and his involvement...there would be thousands of mutants out for his blood."

"As you command..." said the shadowy figure.

"Look at her," sighed the Doctor.

The shadowy figure stepped into the room, he limped slightly and Jessie wondered if the Doctor had anything to do with that. He was a pathetic looking mutant who was slightly facially disfigured from what looked like a very bad wound.

"She doesn't look like her father at all, does she?"

"Not in any way, sir," said the tired looking mutant – a lacky...the Doctor's personal servant, Jessie decided.

"She looks very much like her mother, does she not?"

"Absolutely," agreed the mutant.

Jessie only had a vague recollection of her mother; it was distant in her memories like most of her life had been. And it occurred to her that both of these men had to be wrong...she looked nothing like her mother at all...how could she...when her mother had dark brown hair and brown eyes?

The Doctor's cold hand continued to grip her face so he could examine her features further, "such a lovely child...you'll be a very beautiful woman when you grow up," he admitted, he spoke almost fondly of her, which she found utterly bizarre. "And when your powers mature...you'll be even more powerful than anyone could ever imagine...more power than _he _ever was..." he let go of her face and smoothed her hair away from her forehead. "Rest, now," he commanded. He turned around, the whip of his white coat was the last she saw of him as he left the cell with his assistant; the door slammed hard against the metal frame, it made a clang that echoed and hurt her ears.

Jessie hopped down from the bunk and rushed over to the door, there was no handle, nothing to grip, nothing to pull to open it again. Just metal, solid, reflective enough to let her see a skewed image of herself upon it. She began to cry.

"Please let me out! I'll be good! I promise!" she turned towards the other end of the cell and she awkwardly climbed ontop of the toilet, bracing one foot on the sink and standing on her tiptoes to look out of the small barred window. "Helllllllllllllllllllp!" she screamed desperately before she'd even seen her view. All that she could see was an endless ocean and some large rock formations. "!" she cried again, her voice higher, panic rushing through every vein of her tiny body.

Her cries went unheard, she heard no movement outside. She climbed down from the toilet, and sat upon the floor, pulling her knees to her body and weeping into them. She was utterly alone.

When Jessie awoke, she felt disorientated and for one terrible moment she thought she might be back in the cell again; but then her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the bedroom. Mr. LeBeau's bedroom. She rolled over to see that both Rogue and Mr. LeBeau were there, sleeping soundly on the bed beside her, both facing her, Rogue was curled up, eyes closed lightly, and Mr. LeBeau's arm was draped across her, his cheek against her long brown and white hair.

Jessie didn't understand the odd pang of sadness she felt looking at them; she slid closer and buried herself into Rogue's shoulder, slipping her arm through Rogue's and gripping onto Mr. LeBeau's arm, she felt the soft pulse of Rogue's heart, she felt the pulse of Mr. LeBeau's strong heartbeat in his arm. The feeling of loneliness from her nightmare ebbed away and she closed her eyes, hoping that they would be enough to keep the nightmares from coming back...but she knew that was too much to hope for.

The End - Or Is it? Mwahahahaaaaa

Okay, four eps in one weeks is enough for me. Probably be a little while before the next update (working on the end of the series now). Thanks to everyone for their reviews, and I look forward to hearing more from you all :)


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